This is just random thinking out loud, ignore as you will.
I joined the Borderlands community with the Handsome collection (I was so frustrated with what my old standby Elder Scrolls had done with the on-line version I needed something new).
After playing BL2 for about 1,000 hours (I’m over 6k now) I decided to go back and play BL1 to have some fun and get some context.
I bought BL1 from eh Mac App Store, played it a bit and didn’t like it. I felt underpowered and and not at all happy with the game play (I can’t crit anything!) so put it away.
The the Remaster came out, I bought it just because, and loved it, sine the remaster came out I’ve got 3 characters to end game and they’re all Craw killers. I thought it was all about the Remaster, that’s what made it better.
But last week I was away from my consoles in the mountains of Idaho with just my MacBook.
I fired up that same copy of BL1 (the 2012 Feral port) from the M.A.S. with some tiny hope that I might like it at least a little, enough to satisfy my daily BL needs.
And lo and behold, it’s great! Sure, it doesn’t have the minimap and auto-pickup, but since I am so familiar now with the BL1 maps I don’t really need the MM. And autopickup is nice but not required.
So what’s up? 5 years ago I found it unplayable. Now, the exact same game on the same hardware, I have as much fun as the remaster. Somehow I re-entered the game with the same sniper rifle I had 4 years ago and I’m critting. I’m progressing as well as I do in the remaster.
Very odd. I’m happy, of course, but it’s weird.
–RoA
It better late than never, some say…
Glad you liked it, I like original better than remaster, I don’t care about auto pickups and mini maps, and most of all I don’t care about those new guns they put in instead of fixing the old ones.
And guns in original game look better to me anyway…
Borderlands 1 has this complety different atmosphere of a dirty frontier planet. It starts of slower than BL2 too so most people who play it straight after 2 will most likely be put of. It is not as colourful as 2 so it can be quit a shock.
Still it has this awesome feeling of a lonely traveler on a strange planet that you just won’t get with Borderlands 2.
To me Borderlands 1 is like a Mad Max space western and Borderlands 2 is more like a over the top saturday morning sci-fi cartoon.
I answered my own question this morning.
I’m up in Idaho for the weekend and at this place I only have my older, Xbox 360 version of BL1.
Booted it up to have a little fun with it, and the reason why I disliked it originally became evident very quickly.
For me, the controller interaction makes the game barely playable. No matter what the sensitive is set at, I never feel in control of the character or her interaction with the environment, very frustrating.
So question resolved. The much better controller mechanics in the Remaster make a huge difference to me.
–RoA
The only good thing about the remaster was finally having a FOV slider for Borderlands 1. The original is unplayable for me for that reason. However, the remaster is a broken mess that required more time in the oven, and I stil cannot transfer my Mordecai without losing 2 Bessies, and an Avenger.